Papa Augusto’s Cosmic Journey

Papa Augusto’s Cosmic Journey

“I was just there;
I don’t know how I got there….”
That is what Papa Augusto
said to me at the dinner table
this evening (New Years Day—2008).

“I asked the Lord (he said),
‘why did you send me to a
planet without people?”

Before he could follow-up
on the question (or perhaps
ask the question again), the Lord
had sent a few spacecraft
his way; they were now
landing, and a number of
folks were dropped off in
what papa called ‘lifesavers,’
and the few spacecraft that
had come left, the same way.

Now as papa looked about,
there were men and women:
the women had long necks
and bodies like guitars (so he
said, and didn’t really comment
on the men per se, except for,
they were white with hats).

“If you love me,” said the Lord
to Papa Augusto, as he walked
about, “if you love me, I’ll
bring you to another planet…!”
said the Lord. And then papa
woke up, I had come home
with my wife, his daughter, and
we sat down and had steak and
noodles.

I guess you could say, I stopped his
dreaming, and pulled him out of
a wrecked car cursing about on
an isolated, but now somewhat full
planet. I wasn’t sure where he
was going with all this, but I
was holding my fork and knife,
ready to chop into my steak, and
figured: he was on his own,
meanwhile his facial expression
innocent, collapsed on the
ground, he smiled, and the
rest of the story went barreling
through town, in a black
limousine, and we ate heartily.
I mean to say, I never got the
rest of the story, and if he had
it, he never shared it. But a dream
is just a dream: perhaps fears or
desires or even wishes. In this case
maybe an old man just wanted to be
listened to, old folks never get
much of that, and I suppose
anyone who can tell a good story
like that, deserves a minute or
two at any dinner table.

#2133 1-1-2008